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Friday, December 30, 2005

Two days ago I had an ultrasound and my count of follicles went up from 26 to 37!! Carrying them around has been somewhat painful. They called me after the ultrasound and said to stop taking my fsh and take a different drug that will cause the eggs to go into the follicles, and that my retrieval of the eggs would be on Friday!!!

Today Chris and I went to the doctor's office. Chris had to go give a sample while I went to the procedure room and get my iv. I informed the nurse that I tend to get nauseous easily, so she gave me a medication through the iv that would ward that off. She left me alone for a while. I was waiting for Chris to come back and for the dr. to come in. Very gradually I started feeling anxious. It got worse and worse to the point where I was crying and I wanted to rip out the iv and leave! It was like I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. The nurse came in and was trying to talk me down...making me take deep breaths but it wasn't helping. She said it was a reaction to the medication that was supposed to keep me from getting nauseous...figures. She immediately stopped it and flushed the iv. I felt that way for probably 20 minutes when the dr finally came in and he started asking me what I did for a living and asking other very detailed questions. I felt better almost immediately! At that point Chris came in so luckily he missed all that. A few minutes later they made Chris leave and they rolled me into the procedure room, gave the anesthesia and I was feeling GREAT! Next thing I knew I heard people calling my name and I felt Chris kiss me on the cheek :-) I was very groggy and sleepy and definitely crampy. The dr. came back after a little while and said that he was able to get 26 eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There was a woman next to me that I heard the dr. tell he got 8.

So we call tomorrow to find out how many eggs fertilized and the quality of them and if they recommend to put them back in on Monday or Wednesday.

I'm now laying on the couch with the kitties in my lap. Chris is taking care of me...made me some lunch and making me watch country music videos (we'll see how that makes me feel). I'm definitely in som mild pain but nothing to complain about at this point.

On a deep note, it's kind of sad to think that our child will be conceived without us even in the same city. Oh well, gotta do what you gotta do.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

My dad helped us out once again in a huge way. When we bought our house 5 1/2 years ago he removed the floor in the bathroom and completely replaced it with a tile floor and also put up beadboard on the walls. The bathroom looked great despite our awful shower. My dad came over a few weeks ago and tore out the plastic panels that made up our shower walls, replaced part of the backing board, tiled the walls and replaced the fixtures. Of course it wasn't as easy as that. He ran into many obsticles but overcame them all and the result is absolutely beautiful.

Last week Chris and I went to Best Buy and saw an open box stainless refrigerator at a very good price. Plus if you bought an open box you immediately received a $250 gift card to Best Buy. The fridge wasn't in perfect condition but there were no problems that we wouldn't have ended up making ourselves within a week of having it.So we tried to buy it. The kid checking us out was new and didn't know anything. He rang it up including delivery and I paid for it on a credit card that had a zero balance and a $1000 limit. Great. "Where's my gift card?" "Oh, I don't know how to do that. Let me try to edit the transaction for 20 minutes before I get a manager." 20 minutes later, huffy manager shows up, doesn't say a word, voids the transaction and runs away. So the kid rang it up again this time the right way so that the gift card was activated. I go to pay for it but the card was declined because according to them I was trying to go over the limit. I ended up on the phone with the credit card company for another 20 minutes before they finally worked it out. Transaction done...receipts printed...error message pops up on the screen that says "fatal error". We grabbed our gift card and ran.Two days later they come to deliver our refrigerator then promptly left with the fridge still on the truck. The truck was too big to fit by a large tree at the bottom of our driveway. They would have wheeled it up the driveway but the driveway was a 3-6 inch thick sheet of ice. Thanks to my medication, as they drove away I just stood there and cried. I called my mom to vent and when she told my dad what was going on he hopped in his car with tons of sand and rock salt and helped me chip away ice for an hour! When Chris came home he chipped a bunch more and the next morning i chipped away the rest of what we needed gone. They came back for delivery attempt #2. It was strange because I saw them take the fridge out of a box which I didn't think our fridge would actaully still have. As they were wheeling it up the driveway I noticed there was new plastic wrap around the whole thing. I still can't believe what I did next...I said "is that a new fridge?" "yes it is" "oh, we didn't buy a new fridge, we bought an open box." At this point I'm completely kicking myself!!!!! So the guys argued about whether this was the right fridge or not. One guy went back to the truck to see if there was another one but there wasn't! So they get it up to the door which goes directly into the kitchen and guess what...it wouldn't fit in the door unless the door was taken off the hinges. Of course they can't do it themselves for liability reasons. So they suggested that they leave the fridge on my front lawn, take the door off, bring the fridge in myself (what???), put the old fridge back out on the lawn and they would come back the next day to pick it up. I said "I don't think so...you aren't leaving here unless that new fridge is in place." So I got out my screwdriver and took the door off the hinges myself. (the pins were unable to be removed due to the way the jam was installed) Within 10 minutes the old fridge was gone and the new one was in place. My dad ended up coming up again to make sure the door went back on properly and he also helped me level the fridge because our floors are SO unlevel. Thanks dad!

We are currently in our first (and hopefully only) IVF cycle. This process consists of many steps.

Take birth control pills for three weeks to supress your hormones (check)

Toward the end of the birth control pack take a new drug (injection) called lupron. Lupron is used to prepare the ovaries for stimulation with fertility medications. Lupron temporarily shuts down the messages from the brain to the pituitary gland, which then shuts down follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) production. Without the production of FSH, the ovaries can’t produce the necessary hormones to make eggs. When fertility medications are added Lupron allows the ovaries to grow multiple eggs and suppresses the selection process that only permits one egg a month to ovulate. It also prevents ovulation from occurring before the egg retrieval. (check)

Start your next period (check...I was SO happy when I got this last period!!!)

Day 5 bloodwork to make sure the levels are on track. My levels were a bit out of whack so they lowered my FSH dose by more than half and cut my lupron in half. (check)

Day 7 bloodwork and internal ultrasound. now this was cool...the whole goal here is to grow follicles (empty sacs) on your ovaries for the eggs to fall into (the eggs going into the follicles is technically ovulation). In all of my previous adventures I either grew 1 or no follicles so a lot was resting on my shoulders with this ultrasound. The tech started counting on my right ovary and I couldn't believe my eyes. She was able to count 13 large follicles plus a lot of smaller ones which could easily grow more. THEN she went to my left and counted 13 more!!!! These hormones I'm taking are making me so emotional so I was just laying on the table crying out of happiness and relief. Chris had never come with me for one of these ultrasounds but since he had the day off of work he came with me. I was so happy he was there for that. (check)

Day 8 bloodwork. They'll call me later today to let me know if I need to change my doses at all. (check)

Did you get all that? So through all of this I have lovely bruises on my stomach from the injections. Sometimes it hurts and sometimes it doesn't...just depends on the location I guess. I could cry at the drop of a hat and I feel very blah and poor chris gets his head bitten off every other minute.

So, as far as I know the doctor is waiting for my 26+ follicles to get a little bigger over the next few days. At that point I believe I will take an injection of another hormone (hcg) which will make the eggs to into the follicles. Then they will take them all out of me (retrieval) and fertilize them. We find out the next day how many fertilized and what quality they are. I believe three days later one will be placed back directly in my uterus (transfer). The rest will be frozen so in the event that this cycle doesn't work, I won't need to go through the whole injection/follicle growing process again.

OH, having my ovaries filled with follicles is VERY uncomfortable. Bending over to tie my shoes is impossible. I'm moving very slowly. I'm fine if I'm still but moving around is definitely painful.

Monday, December 26, 2005

I wanted to create a place where I could share with everyone what is going on in my dramatic attempt to have children. As individual things happen they seem so important, but then the next day brings something totally new, so if I didn't get around to telling you what happened yesterday, you'll miss it.

I'll back up a little...Chris and I decided in May of 2003 that we wanted to have children, after years of saying we would never want any! Two major things happened the week before we made our decision...Chris's grandfather passed away, and our dear friend had a failed pregnancy at 7 months. These two events made us realize that we shouldn't be putting a family on hold. I knew all along that I had Poly Cystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) which is the number one cause of female infertility. We knew that getting pregnant would be very difficult. We needed to try on our own for 6 months before a fertility specialist would see us. So that's what we did, obviously with no luck. I was put on medication that would regulate my cycles which worked but getting me to ovulate was a bit trickier. I took clomid (a pill) for 3 cycles (sorry chris), one of which was an IUI where they place the sperm directly into the cervix with a catheter...not real fun. When the clomid wasn't working I ended up switching doctors. My new doctor eventually put me on a different medication to make me ovulate. This medication was pure follicle stimulating hormone and was in the form of an injection which Chris gave to me every day. We tried naturally with all three of those cycles with no luck. Which brings us to now.